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Wife Uses In-Flight Texting to Tell Husband 'Goodbye'

During those terrifying moments in the sky on the Southwest flight, some of the passengers aboard were able to get messages to their family and friends on the ground. The Southwest flight was equipped with WIFI, as well as an in-flight texting system. (Published Tuesday, April 17, 2018)

Update: After saying "goodbye" via text, Chad and Gianna Baur were reunited at the airport Wednesday night. Gianna was onboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 Tuesday and was unsure she'd ever see her husband again. See their emotional reunion below.

For the next 17 minutes, as the pilot diverted the aircraft to Philadelphia for an emergency landing, passengers onboard the aircraft wore oxygen masks and used in-flight texting and Wifi to reach out to loved ones in what they believed may have been their final minutes.

Chad Baur, in Dallas, said reading text messages from his wife while her plane's engine was failing were some of the most terrifying and intense moments of his life.

Baur's phone was in his pocket when his wife Gianna started texting Tuesday morning.

For the next few minutes, he said they both tried to tell each other everything they could in case they never spoke again.

At the time, Baur was alone in his apartment. He said he called both their parents while he and his wife kept texting. The messages read:

Chad Baur was texting with his wife as she rode out the final minutes of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 Tuesday, April 17, 2018.
Photo credit: NBC 5 News

"They announce we have to land... I'm so scared... flight attendants are checking everyone's oxygen... it's so bumpy... it's an emergency landing"

Then she texted ...

"I love you so much"

"For the next five minutes, we just try to say all the things we would want to say to each other if that was the last thing we got to say," Baur said. "Me saying goodbye to my wife, who might have minutes left, and her trying to say goodbye to me who may have decades left."

"It's not every day, or every year, or every decade that something happens that makes you stop and just be grateful for life and the people you got to live it with, and this was that moment for myself and my family."

Baur's father-in-law, Todd Baur, spoke with NBC 5 Tuesday morning and shared Gianna's story and that she saw a woman drawn out of the plane only to be pulled back inside the cabin by quick-thinking passengers.